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Ipek S. Burnett, PhD presents: Psychological Activism and the Power of Aesthetic Response
In a time marked by collective anxiety and social fragmentation, psychic numbing has become a defining feature of contemporary life. As alienation deepens and apathy takes hold, imagination and moral responsiveness are dulled, allowing injustice, inequality, political corruption, and ecological destruction to persist.
This presentation approaches aesthetic response as a form of psychological activism through aJungian lens. Jung understood the psyche as fundamentally symbolic and creative, animated by a deep need for meaning and connection. Encounters with art can stir what he called an “inner necessity,” the movement toward wholeness that underlies both creative and ethical action. By reactivating imagination and embodied awareness, aesthetic response interrupts psychica nesthesia and renews the capacity for engagement. Long central to movements for social transformation, art becomes a force that awakens feeling and shared meaning, moving individuals and communities beyond detachment toward agency, solidarity, resilience, and hope.
Saturday, November 14, 2026, 2:00 – 4:00 CST on Zoom
Ipek S. Burnett, PhD, is a Turkish-American author, cultural critic, and educator. She is the author of A Jungian Inquiry into the American Psyche: The Violence of Innocence (Routledge, 2020) and the editor of Re-Visioning the American Psyche (Routledge, 2024). She is a contributing writer at CounterPunch and a published novelist and essayist in Turkey. In addition to her scholarly and literary work, she serves on the boards of organizations dedicated to social justice, human rights, and democracy, including PEN America, 826 Valencia, and the HumanRights Watch Executive Committee in San Francisco.Burnett holds a doctorate degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, a master’s degree in Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a bachelor’s degree in Modern Culture and Media and International Relations from Brown University.
Website: www.ipekburnett.com
Instagram: @ipek.s.burnett